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It's Around Here SomewhereBy Rick Horowitz Dubya at daybreak, the sun peeking through the curtains. It has the feel of an ordinary day -- if any day spent as the world's most powerful man can ever be considered ordinary. The house will stay night-quiet for another hour or so. Dubya's got his robe and his slippers on, and he's leafing through his briefings. Then he remembers. He was looking for it last night, and couldn't quite come up with it. He'd have looked longer, but it was bedtime; he promised himself he'd start again first thing in the morning. So now he drops the pile of papers onto the nightstand and gets down on his hands and knees. There's no reason it should have fallen under the bed; he knows that. But if it were where it's supposed to be -- in the top-right drawer of his Oval Office desk, the same as always -- he wouldn't be looking for it at all, would he? Under the bed is as good a place to start as any. There's nothing there, just as there's nothing that's slipped behind the dresser, or dropped into the wastebasket. He's in the closet now -- poking a hand inside his jackets, turning his pants pockets inside out -- when he hears the sound of stirring behind him. His wife murmurs something sleepily indistinct; only the question mark is audible. He answers with one of his own: "Honey, have you seen my mandate?" * * * Dubya at lunchtime, trying to retrace his steps. He saw the mandate yesterday, didn't he? He took it out to show to some visiting congressmen, the same as always, and then -- Or was that the day before? No, wait -- he was on the road yesterday, talking again about changing Social Security. It makes a great prop up there on stage when he talks about changing Social Security, and everyone always cheers. (Of course, anyone who might not cheer isn't allowed in.) But that's not the only time he takes the mandate along. He takes it along when he talks about making his tax cuts permanent, and when he talks about appointing certain kinds of judges, and when he talks about putting the brakes on stem-cell research, and even when he talks about the war in Iraq. The mandate helps him stand firm -- presidential -- on every one of those things. No retreat, and no -- Wait a minute. The last time he talked about stem cells with some visiting congressmen, they didn't seem to be paying much attention. Not even when he got to the part about the mandate, and about all the political capital the mandate gives him. It was as if they were making up their own minds! And didn't he read something bizarre about the war recently? Some new poll? More than half the people now saying the war in Iraq hasn't made us safer? And almost 60 percent saying it wasn't worth fighting? His mandate must have gone missing a while ago! * * * Dubya at nightfall, at the Lost & Found. He's filling out a Missing Mandate report; his wife is along to offer moral support. What color? the duty officer wants to know. Bright red, of course, he says. What texture? Clear. Firm. What size? "Enormous!" And Dubya spreads his arms as wide as they can go. "It's a gigantic mandate! That's why I can do whatever I want to do, and everyone has to follow me!" "That big, eh?" says the duty officer. "Maybe even bigger!" he says. "Maybe even this big!" And somehow, he manages to spread his arms even wider. The duty officer watches Dubya spread his arms wide. He also watches Dubya's wife, standing a step behind Dubya, where Dubya can't see her. She's looking right at the duty officer, and she's got her own arms much closer together. She could be holding a loaf of bread. * * * Dubya at bedtime, with the lights still burning. Posted 6/10/05. "Rick's"
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Rick Horowitz
